Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Essays In The Economics Of Education, Breyon J. Williams

Theses and Dissertations

I examine, separately, the impact of three education programs on student achievement, using difference-in-differences and difference-in-difference-in-differences designs. First, I examine whether spillover benefits on achievement exist from preschool. I estimate the effect of exposure to a South Carolina preschool program that targets disadvantaged four-year-olds on students’ test scores in grades 3 through 5, where exposure means residing in a school district once the program was made available and disadvantaged students are those eligible for free or reduced-price lunch or Medicaid. I find that exposure to the preschool program not only increases the math and reading scores of targeted students, but …

Essays On The Economics Of International Remittances And Migration, Marian Manic

Theses and Dissertations

Existing literature on international remittances recognizes the increasing importance of these transfers on economic development as well as their effect on the reduction of poverty in developing countries. However, the studies on this topic are still divided over the long-term effects of remittances, identifying instances when remittances have either positive or negative results. Probably the most important oversight of the literature on international remittances and migration is the lack of the regional dimension in the analysis, which is the focus of this dissertation.

In the first chapter I propose a novel spatial dataset of remittances and spending from a nationally …

Task-Specific Human Capital Accumulation And Wage Outcomes Among Young Men: An Empirical Analysis, Morgan Holland

Theses and Dissertations

Existing literature suggests that investment in different kinds of task-specific human capital may have significant effects on wage outcomes and overall economic wellbeing of individuals. To examine this claim, the accumulation of task-specific human capital in young male workers with no college education and its effects on wages is measured. Using National Longitudinal Survey of Youth panel data merged with six task-specific human capital measures derived from the Dictionary of Occupational Titles task contents data, fixed effects regression was utilized to measure how workers’ taskspecific human capital develops over time. This process shows that among the task measures used, accumulation …

Ruminating On Ruminants: Goats And The People Who Raise Them In South Carolina, Brianna Dyan Farber

Theses and Dissertations

In South Carolina, many farmers and homesteaders have utilized goats as an adaptive and versatile resource and component of their diversified farming operations. This thesis addresses the experiences, motivations, difficulties, and successes of people raising goats in South Carolina, in the context of sustainable agricultural practice and landscapes. Goats cohabit insecure but promising ecological, political, economic, and sociocultural landscapes with humans and other nonhuman species. These relationships can undermine and support goats as belonging in South Carolina. My participants cannot simply raise goats as a purely economic choice because they create meaningful emotional relationships with their animals. Goats can become …

Does Human Genetic Diversity Affect Net Productivity?, Breyon Jontae Williams

Theses and Dissertations

Quamrul Ashraf and Oded Galors' (2013) study, "The `Out of Africa' Hypothesis, Human Genetic Diversity, and Comparative Economic Development", seeks to explain cross-country variations in economic development, particularly per capita income, through variations in human genetic diversity. Their analysis depends on two fundamental assumptions; genetic diversity's positive effect upon technological productivity and its negative effect upon social capital. This study tests the validity of the results presented by Ashraf and Galor. Specifically, this study seeks to test whether or not the hump-shape relationship observed between income per capita and predicted genetic diversity is validated. Our empirical work supports their findings.